Francis Lai - Un homme et une femme(1966)

I don't drink alcohol. But I still enjoy going into licenced premises in the morning. That smell, the sense of possibility (which, by lunchtime, has already dissolved in amber- another gone day). So, I'm sitting in The Parrot, cradling a diet Pepsi, thinking about going outside for another fag (what luxury that was, we took for granted- indoor smoking! Watch V for Vendetta - in the fascist  dystopia of the future as imagined in 2005 they were still allowed to smoke in the pub!) Anyway, I'm  thinking along these tangential lines when my friend Jim swings in on his crutches, the urgent and muscular leaning out of keeping with the little shuffle of his feet. And just behind him is the man I've come to meet...
The man I will refer to as Kartoshka is about fifty. He has a  worn and tired face, weathered and pock marked. His hair is cut in an old fashioned way and he is wearing a sports jacket and old fashioned high waisted trousers and an open necked shirt. He could be a lecturer or a senior social worker. But close up he's more deadbeat. Cuffs frayed, shirt slightly soiled.
I'm surprised when he orders a coffee and he notices- 'I haven't drunk for years now... but I chain smoke'.  The accent ? what accent, it's not foreign at all. It's a neutral M4 corridor accent.
'Mr Kartoshka I presume' I say as we shake hands.
He smiles...he tells me his real name but asks that I don't disclose it.
He won't let me take his picture.
We spoke about music (Bossa Nova) and movies (Nouvelle Vague)  and football (Cruyff, Riquelme, Blokhin and Messi - though maddeningly he says that his favourite player was Sacha Prokopenko). And, of course, about blogs.In the past I've been involved in fanzines, music, football. Some poetry too. I was late coming into the blogging thing. About 2009... I hadn't been doing much on the creative side, and one day I realised that it was an ideal medium for me to just get back into the habit of rattling off a few ideas...
Almost 2 years now since he jacked in the blogging. No plans to start again, moved onto other things, he's writing a play about Nilton Santos, it's coming on slowly. He's got problems with his joints...he's cut down on collecting (records, books, magazines...)
This, he said, was his most popular post : http://kartoshka167.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Francis%20Lai

Serge Gainsbourg- Anna (1967)

The soundtrack LP of a 1967 made for TV musical comedy. Gainsbourg maintains his lifelong tradition of associating with beautiful starlets- this time the multi talented Anna Karina.

A Clockwork Orange- OST (1972)

Rest assured I'm not walking around this provincial Welsh town in a bowler hat and false eyelashes brandishing a cane and threatening tramps with a tolchock on the gulliver.
But I've long been a fan of A Clockwork Orange.
Trying to see the movie in the 80's and early 90's was, of course, quite difficult. My VHS copy had Dutch subtitles.
Kubrick's film is full of what is now considered classic retro imagery:



Burgess, writing in 1961, had envisaged the book as being set in 1972, but introduced the highly stylized speech and fashions as a means of 'futureproofing' ; Kubrick envisaged the story taking place at the end of the 20th century, but did not seek to create a vision of the future as he had done in 2001. The images that Kubrick and production designer John Barry created were
stylized visions of the then present, drawing on the Pop and Op art influenced interior design and architecture of the day.
The dystopia of Alex's high rise estate actually was just that; the movie is a depiction of Wandsworth , Borehamwood, Thamesmead and Hertfordshire in 1971.

What I hoped for, having seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, was an expert attempt at visual futurism. A Clockwork Orange, the book, had been set in a vague future which was probably already past; Kubrick had the opportunity to create a fantastic new future which, being realised in décor, could influence the present.
Anthony Burgess You've Had Your Time (1990)

Anyway, here's the original soundtrack from the movie:

Ghosts...of the Civil Dead (1988)

I haven't posted much Nick Cave stuff- I'm sure that nearly all The Birthday Party and Bad Seeds LPs are readily available. I notice , tho, that this seems to be quite rare.
Here is the soundtrack of John Hillcoat's 1988 movie Ghosts...of the Civil Dead .Hillcoat and Cave are long term collaborators, from 1981's Birthday Party video Nick the Stripper to Cave penned feature film The Proposition (2005).
Ghosts... , based partly on the autobiographical writings of the American Jack Henry Abbott (1944–2002) concerns a lockdown in a privately run maximum security prison in the middle of the desert.
The title is derived from civiliter mortuus, a condition under Roman law whereby a miscreant was deprived of their civil status and rights.

Cave as Maynard in the movie...

News [Voice: Michelle Babbit] - Nick Cave
Introduction-A Prison in the Desert - Nick Cave
I've Been a Prison Guard Since I Was 18 Years Old - David Hale Associates
I Was 16 When They Put Me in Prison
You're Danglin' Us Like a Bunch of Meat on a Hook - David Hale Associates
Pop Mix - Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Mick Harvey
We Were United Once
Day of the Murders - David Hale Associates
Lilly's Theme (A Touch of Warmth) - Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Mick Harvey
Maynard Mix - Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Mick Harvey
What I'm Telling Is the Truth - David Hale Associates
Outro-The Free World - Nick Cave
One Man Released So They Can Imprison the Rest of the World

Adriano Celentano- 24,000 Baci (1961)

How did we manage before the internet? I cannot help thinking that, living in a provincial town with a modest library, that I must have existed in a perpetual state of unsatisfied curiosity. Did I spend hours each evening staring into space vainly trying to remember who wrote that, what was that movie called, what ever happened to and so forth.
I wish there was some means of quantifying how much my knowledge has increased in the ten years or so that I have had access to the internet. And I believe that this knowledge has enhanced my life, and that I am just as able as ever to live an ordinary life ( by which I mean I haven't sacrificed other aspects of my life in order to sit numbly in front of a monitor).

During the early eighties I remember chancing upon a late night screening of an enchanting movie. a rites of passage story set in 1960's Sarajevo. I remembered that the name Dolly featured in the title, that the protagonist was called Dino, and that the soundtrack included prominent use of a fantastically exotic sounding song about a large number of kisses.

Everybody's clever nowadays, so many of you will already know that I am referring to the 1981 debut of the Serbian director Emir Kusturica, Sjećaš li se Doli Bel? , and that the song in question was Adriano Celentano's 24 Mila Baci .
Here's the song (which I hadn't heard since seeing the movie):



Addendum: Since writing this piece I recently saw the movie for the first time in about 25 years. My memory had not deceived me- a fantastic film, highly recommended.

Бумер Original Soundtrack (2003)

Бумер (Boomer) is an award winning 2003 Russian film directed by Peter Buslov. Four crooks go on the run, a road trip taken in the stolen BMW (Бумер) of the title.
It depicts the lost generation of the Yeltsin era economic crisis as Russia came to terms with capitalism and the 'free market'.
Blurb: Corrupt cops, street gangs, "Bratki" , angry truck drivers, beautiful women and death are what four friends in a black boomer who go on a mission from one region of Russia to another are about to face in the wasteland of small-town Russia.
The soundtrack features 8 tracks by Sergei Shnurov (Сергей Шнуров) aka Shnur, of the band Leningrad.

The Harder They Come - Soundtrack (1972)

Ok, for all our UK readers, the heatwave begins today.
Here is the soundtrack from Perry Henzell’s 1972 Jamaican classic, which starred Jimmy Cliff as Ivan, the archetypal rude boy variant of the popular outlaw folk hero.




















You Can Get It If You Really Want Jimmy Cliff
Draw Your Brakes Scotty
Rivers of Babylon The Melodians
Many Rivers to Cross Jimmy Cliff
Sweet and Dandy The Maytals
The Harder They Come Jimmy Cliff
Johnny Too Bad The Slickers
007 Shanty Town Desmond Dekker
Pressure Drop The Maytals
Sitting in Limbo Jimmy Cliff
You Can Get It If You Really Want Jimmy Cliff
The Harder They Come Jimmy Cliff

Repo Man- Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1984).

Repo Man Iggy Pop
TV Party Black Flag
Institutionalized Suicidal Tendencies
Coup D'Etat The Circle Jerks
El Clavo Y La Cruz The Plugz
Pablo Picasso Burning Sensations
Let's Have a War Fear
Pablo Picasso Burning Sensations
Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man) The Plugz
Bad Man Juicy Bananas
Reel Ten The Plugz

Dealing with punks, aliens, the CIA and automobile reposession, Repo Man is a cult classic directed by Alex Cox and starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton.

When asked what the movie was really about, Cox replied:
Nuclear War. Of course. What else could it be about? And the demented society that contemplated the possibility thereof. Repoing people's cars and hating alien ideologies were only the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg itself was the maniac culture which had elected so-called "leaders" named Reagan and Thatcher, who were prepared to sacrifice everything -- all life on earth -- to a gamble based on the longevity of the Soviet military, and the whims of their corporate masters. J. Frank Parnell - the fictitious inventor of the Neutron Bomb - was the central character for me. He sets the film in motion, on the road from Los Alamos, and, as portrayed by the late great actor, Fox Harris, is the centrepoint of the film.
In December 2008, a sequel was reported to be going into development with the working title Repo Chick.The film will be produced by David Lynch.The story will be set against the backdrop of the present economic downturn, and a boom in repossession that extends far beyond cars and homes. On 13 February 2009, Cox announced on his personal blog that shooting had finished and the sequel was now in post-production.